Fiscal Transfers for Forest Cover: Aligning National and Subnational Objectives in a Federal Setting

Forests provide a wide variety of direct services like soil conservation, groundwater recharge, and preservation of biodiversity benefits that accrue to the immediate region surrounding the forest. The costs of forest cover include both the costs of maintenance, including preservation from poaching...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Economic and political weekly 2022-01
Main Authors: Rajaraman, Indira, Gupta, Manish
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Asymmetry
Carbon sequestration
Climate change
College teachers
Costs
Forests
Government
Grants
Jurisdiction
Public finance
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Summary:Forests provide a wide variety of direct services like soil conservation, groundwater recharge, and preservation of biodiversity benefits that accrue to the immediate region surrounding the forest. The costs of forest cover include both the costs of maintenance, including preservation from poaching of timber and wildlife and the opportunity cost of holding back land under forests from other more commercially profitable activities. The FSI has three categories: very dense, moderately dense, and open.3 The long-term national target is to increase forest cover to 33% of the country’s geographical area first introduced by the National Forest Policy (NFP), 1952 and reiterated in subsequent policies of the government, including the NFP, 1988 (Government of India 1952; Ministry of Environment and Forests 1988). The new draft NFP, 2018 also aims to maintain at least one-third of India’s total land area under forest and tree cover.4 Furthermore, India has committed to creating an additional carbon sink of 2.5 to 3 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent through additional forest and tree cover by 2030 in its nationally determined contribution (NDC) to the Paris Agreement.5 In terms of aggregate forest cover in the country as a whole, the data from 2001–19 suggest a slow increase as shown in Figure 1 (note 3).
ISSN:0012-9976